


your heart on the line

by oblivioluna



Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon-Compliant until it isn’t, Dumb As Rocks, F/M, HOW MANY TIMES AM I GONNA WRITE THE SAME DAMN THING?, Hurt/Comfort, como se dice, dumb idiots in love but they don’t know it yet, lauren is, oooooh spooky ooooh, the answer is a lot, this minific is halloween themed because lauren’s ghosts won’t leave her alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oblivioluna/pseuds/oblivioluna
Summary: “I just didn’t know anywhere else where I could go,” Lauren breathes, half-conscious through only the sheer strength of her stubbornness, bruises scattered across her powder-white visage and the rosy imprint of her knuckles like flowers on a snowy field. “So keep that in mind.”And then proceeds to promptly pass out in his arms.—(In which Lauren ends up killing certain old ghosts, and a certain assassin is the only one who is able to understand her.)
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Comments: 8
Kudos: 87





	your heart on the line

**Author's Note:**

> _“Weep for yourself, my man,  
>  You'll never be what is in your heart  
> Weep little lion man,  
> You're not as brave as you were at the start  
> Rate yourself and rake yourself,  
> Take all the courage you have left  
> Wasted on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head  
> But it was not your fault but mine  
> And it was your heart on the line.”_  
> Little Lion Man, Mumford and Sons

She comes in like a storm, like she always has. It’s only fitting - they entered into each other’s lives in whirlwinds of fury and lightning, wrecking everything and not even bothering to clean up the pieces. Now they’re both akin to shattered glass glued together again, in a sort, a fragile reflection of each other’s selves, slowly healing at the edges. With them, it has always been the unspoken glances, the quiet gestures, the underlying silver lining between words.

But tonight is different. He’s been sensing it for a while, now - her pull to chaos, his own pull to calm. Kieran’s life is a series of memories pulled from time and put to paper in the form of charcoal strokes and brushes; hers is a set of photographs going up in flames.

Tonight her chaos breaks, he supposes. Her hair is a living bonfire, swept over her shoulders and wild and unruly. She isn’t in her officer uniform, but the familiar belt is sling around her waist, gun in its holster.

She is gasping for air.

Kieran watches slowly, dread creeping into his stomach, as she clutches onto the doorframe for dear life, blood staining her hands like crimson paint on silk canvas. Some of it stains her face, too, drying at the edges.

“I just didn’t know anywhere else where I could go,” Lauren breathes, half-conscious through only the sheer strength of her stubbornness, bruises scattered across her powder-white visage and the rosy imprint of her knuckles like flowers on a snowy field. “So keep that in mind.”

And then proceeds to promptly pass out in his arms.

____

This has happened before.

It has now happened again.

The only difference is that she isn’t - well - here out of necessity. She’s _chosen_ to be here. And it should mean nothing; it _does_ mean nothing, it can’t otherwise. Greychapel, the circus, etc - their partnership is now tentative, on the verge of tipping over into the personal. After what happened in their past, there is no more room for any facade of professional feelings.

They are allies. But she doesn’t consider him a friend. And he can’t consider her one, lest—

Golden eyes snap open, and Kieran sits up straighter as she bolts up from her former position on the couch, auburn tumbling down the side of her face. “I—”

“You’ve been asleep a while,” he says slowly, as if speaking to a particularly angry predator on edge. “Said you didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Lauren falls silent. He’s been observing her for the past hour - she doesn’t seem wounded, save for the small cuts on her skin and hands, but the bruises will require salve and the _blood—_

“It’s not mine,” she mutters, her voice a low rasp, throaty with disuse. “It’s not mine.”

“What happened, Lauren?”

She swallows. “I told you. I didn’t know anywhere else I could go. Not with…” Lauren breaks off, curling her hands into fists protectively, tucking them against her chest.

“I’m going to ask again, Lauren. What _happened?”_

She refuses to answer.

He sighs. But Kieran’s eyes roam her hands once again - the blood must’ve come from elsewhere, as she’d said. It only takes a few seconds for him to connect the dots: she must’ve stabbed someone, which is highly unlikely despite her very temperamental nature, or—

Ah.

Not his place to pry.

“Let me wash it off,” he says softly, and her head snaps up. The bags under her eyes are formidable in their color and ability to literally never leave her skin, putting together the haunted visage of a woman that he usually only sees on her worst days. This _is_ her worst. “At least let me do that. It’s drying. If you’re going home after this - I highly doubt your uncle would want to see his niece coming home with literal blood on her hands.”

Lauren nods after a while, numbly agreeing. “Sure.”

_As good as I’ll get for now._ He wastes no time in getting a clean towel from the bathroom, soaking it in hot water. When he gets back, she’s lounging back on a set of cushions. It would be cute if it weren’t for the context.

Technically, she _is_ his girlfriend, but they don’t talk about that now.

“Open,” he orders, and when she sticks her hands out, they’re still curled inward, tight as claws. He arches a dark brow, looking up at her as he shifts closer in order to better angle himself from on the couch.

“Officer, this isn’t going to hurt in the slightest.” He elicits no response from her. Kieran tries for a small grin. “What, did you slay a dragon on your way here?” A finger hooks around her index, pulling. “It’s nothing I’ve never seen before.”

“I know,” she whispers. There is still no emotion whatsoever in her voice.

“Then let me see.”

“Kieran—”

“Lauren.” And there it is, the final strike against her walls.

She slides her hands slightly open, though with no short of reluctance. He tugs one finger down, then another, until they’re all open and crusted with old blood smudging around the edges. Lauren flinches as the hot towel slides down her skin, washing away her grievance.

“This is familiar.”

“You think?” he says, snorting as he uncaps the lid on the container of salve he has next to him. “I patch you up, you patch me up...I think we really are even this time, officer.”

She looks away.

“Did someone hurt you?” he says dangerously quietly.

“No.” A shake of the head. “Nothing like that.”

“Did Davenport—”

She barely reacts to the name. But something in her eyes darkens. “It wasn’t her. I just - I don’t want to be interrogated, Kieran.”

But here’s the thing, see - he knows the look in her eyes. He knows it well. That guilt welling up inside.

And slowly, slowly, he takes his last guess.

“Sake?”

She nearly claws into the couch.

“Lauren—” Kieran snatches her wrist before she can bolt away, like a frightened deer. “Lauren, _listen to me._ I don’t know what happened between him and you in the past, but he won’t hurt you anymore. I swear it—”

“You’re right,” she says, and when she looks next at him, there is a silent grief in the welling of her irises. “He can’t. Because I killed him.”

Silence.

“You—” He’s at a loss for words. He usually is with her. “You _killed—”_

“Funny, right?” Laughter spills out of her lips, sudden and shocking. “Your righteous little moral officer isn’t so moral anymore. She isn’t even _moral,”_ Lauren spits, and in his eyes, transforms into something else entirely: something far darker, heart made of stone, death incarnate. “I tried to stop the blood flow. Didn’t work. He died anyway.”

“You shot him?” he says, trying to frantically regain his bearings.

“Some things catch up with you eventually,” she breathes. “I lost my rank because of him, and now, _they’re_ losing a chance at civil terrorism. Equivalent exchange. Shouldn’t cost us much,” she continues, shaking, clearly not meaning a single word. “We’ll be able to stop the February attacks anyhow, and—”

“Don’t make this about _Lune,_ Lauren, you just killed someone for heaven’s sake!”

“Which you know about, and won’t judge me for, because you’ve done it a thousand times over.”

“I have,” he says. “I understand what it’s like. The first kill.”

She falls silent at that. He does, after all - it’s an unacknowledged truth that they keep between both of them, a closely guarded secret. Chandeliers and broken hyacinth petals and a man choking out his last words and _you were that boy they took, made something monstrous, weren’t you—?_

“Look at me, Lauren, you have to _look at me,”_ he hisses, gripping the sides of her arms. He recognizes the signs of her panic: this has happened before, in Greychapel, in so many other places, her breathing steadily becoming a thundering set of ragged pants, the terror in her eyes unfleeting. What had it been like for _her?_ To shoot down an enemy and to only regret it too late?

“I saved his life once,” she croaks out. “I saved his life and now - _now—”_

She breaks.

It’s been a long time coming, but she breaks. Lightning strikes, and as soon as it hits, scatters daisy petals across a field, tearing through the remnant of innocence until there is nothing left but the clot of rotten and blackened flowers. She doesn’t collapse into his arms this time, but he stops her from embracing the floor, holding her up like glass - if she shatters, she will only injure herself further. Lauren Sinclair wields grief like a weapon and treats vengeance like a savior; the tears pooling down her cheeks pomegranate seeds hitting the carpet. Maybe it’s the desperation in her veins taking, but he doesn’t meet reluctance when his arms accidentally shift around her back - she clutches at his shirt, burying her face into cloth, the cotton wetting at her touch.

“I can’t go back,” she grits out. “I’m _horrible.”_

“You’re not.” He matches her blow for blow, meeting her eyes sternly. “I’m not going to ask why you finally killed him - but you meant it. You meant to kill. And I know that’s a weight that never leaves you.”

“How do you live with so much on your hands?” she asks, and they are back _there_ again, for a brief second - flashes of their worst selves and their worst deeds coming alive - but he snaps himself back to the present. “I took a life. I can take one again. I can’t _live with this.”_

“You have to,” he says, the perfume of orange blossom and the remnant scent of coppery blood meeting his nose. “You can. You just have to keep telling yourself you’re more than your worst deeds.”

“I’m not,” she insists, fisting at his collar. “I’m not.”

“Again with the stubbornness, officer?”

“You don’t know how far I’ve gone.”

“I don’t. But I do know whatever bad deed you think you’ve done, I’ve done worse.” Kieran decides against touching her again - it feels like his skin is on fire - but when he closes his hand over the swell of her hip to steady her, she doesn’t say a word. “You’re more than a killer, Lauren. I know _that,_ at least. Are you going to argue with me?”

Like calls to like: darkness to darkness. Darkness he doesn’t fear.

“If I do, what will you do?”

“Stubborn idiot,” he murmurs, but she wipes away the last of her tears. “What do you need?”

She hesitates at that.

“Clothes that aren’t bloody for a start,” she quips, some of that familiar sarcasm in her voice. He doesn’t let the surge of relief in his chest show in his face as he ventures over to a nearby drawer.

“I—” She pauses. “I liked this shirt.”

“Ah, sentimental?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she shoots back. “But - getting blood off of it - would there be a—”

Of course. Of _course._ “Bleach works most times. If it’s dried, cool water for an hour and enzymatic solution.”

“In the name of academic purposes.”

_“Academic purposes.”_

“Yes.” It’s almost a smirk on her face. “That.”

“Anything else?” he asks, crouching next to her. She crumples the shirt in her hands, bunching navy cloth.

“Yes,” she answers. “Keep me company.”

Kieran relents, because this, too, has been a long time coming. And she’s desperate, he tells himself. And she needs him. But what he doesn’t admit - yet, anyway - is that he wants to stay as much as she does, the unspoken promise between them drifting as always, bright as the candle he lights to ward away the shadows, burning wax until she drifts off, and so does he.

And for once, the ghosts of their past do not chase them further.

**Author's Note:**

> Lauren: Nothing scarier than past traumas, right? RIGHT?  
> Everyone else: please get help
> 
> I didn’t even plan on writing this. The idea literally broke my door down and invaded my head until I put - well - my fingers to my keyboard. I ain’t gonna lie, folks - this thing kinda went AWOL towards the end, but I don’t care and this is the 29383974th time I’m writing fluff for Dumb and Dumber, so. Take scraps I guess. Season 2, please give me the corruption arc I’ve been begging for. If it doesn’t? Feel free to call me a clown. I’m already living at the circus anyway.
> 
> (Scheherazade’s next chapter should come sometime in early November - so keep your eyes peeled! Luna out.)


End file.
